In a public statement, the American College of Pediatricians said it was “appalled by Netherlands’ recent legalization of Neonatal Euthanasia and Belgium’s legalization of euthanasia for terminally ill children of any age.”

“The concept of euthanasia is based on a utilitarian worldview that defines the value of the individual in terms of that individual’s contribution to society,” said the college. “This ideology relegates neonates, especially those infants with congenital defects, to an expendable status.”

A spokesperson for the organization, Dr. Den Trumbull, stated that this kind of legalization “underlies many of the current proposals for the allocation of healthcare resources in America,” pointing to how the Affordable Care Act “prescribes that scarce resources be focused on adolescents and adults under 50.”

The Belgium Parliament’s vote last week has drawn widespread international criticism, yet euthanasia proponents admit that the practice was already widespread.

Britain's “Dr. Death,” retired medical doctor Michael Irwin, says it happens in his country despite its illegality. According to The Daily Mail, Irwin says he knows of “one or two” euthanized children who have been killed “under the pretext of what we call Double Effect where the child has been given huge doses of painkillers and so on, in order to relieve discomfort, pain and other symptoms.”

Britain's health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said he “will look into the instances and into whether the law has been broken, and whether the law has been followed in an appropriate way.”

It is unknown whether child euthanasia takes place in the U.S. Dr. Felipe Vizcarrondo, a member of the American College of Pediatricians and the author of a recent paper on the subject of euthanasia, told LifeSiteNews that while “it is said that active killing happens in the U.S., in hospitals, hospices, and is not reported, there are no stats.”

Vizcarrondo also said, “Since [Dr. Jack] Kevorkian there have not been any widely discussed cases that I remember.”

The American College of Pediatricians was formed in 2002 when its members split from the American Academy of Pediatrics over the Academy's support for abortion and adoption of children by same-sex couples, among other policy differences. The ACP's motto is “Protecting the Child, Preserving the Family, Honoring Life.”